To ensure best interest of mental and physical health for teenagers and children, and to give consideration to viewing privileges of audiences in various age groups, as well as to provide appropriate space for creation and development of the television production industry, countries and organizations worldwide rate movies and television programs based on contents therein into various categories. In the United States, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) divides movies and television programs into ratings on basis of age. To a certain extent, a purpose of offering programs containing specific aspects and contents suitable for certain age groups is satisfied.
Before being launched or played in a country or a region, movies and television programs need to be previewed and rated accordingly by responsible organizations as described above. In terms of movie control, audiences that do not fulfill age restrictions or regulations of certain ratings are not allowed to watch a movie intended to watch. In terms of television programs, it is mandatory that channel providers play appropriate channels or programs at corresponding time slots, or to block specific channels or programs from subscribers without proper identification verifications. Evaluation criteria of ratings are based on explicit sexual content, graphic violence and strong profanity, or other suggestive or even substantial dialogues that are upsetting to mental and physical conditions of audiences of certain age groups. Thus, based on degrees of disclosure of the foregoing factors, responsible organizations determine which ratings of certain movies or programs should be given.
In a digital era as today, processing techniques of digital televisions or digital signals have progressed significantly. Compared to conventional analog television signals, digital television signals contain much more added information, giving digital televisions a wider application range. Digital television signals of cable television or broadcasting television programs are transmitted to a digital television at a user's end. During the transmission, application information, interactive information, or more diversified signals be added to data transport streams of the digital television signals by way of signal compression and encoding according to the user's demands. Information of such is a type of service information for providing descriptions or manipulation for signal transmission and reception.
Therefore, the service information is added into data transport streams of digital television programs containing the aforementioned rating and attribute information, so as to generate a rating region table (RRT) for determining broadcast settings as required. Currently in the United States, the RRT is defined by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). Criteria for rating television programs, apart from age groups, contents of the programs are mainly taken into consideration. Contents are classified into attributes of violence (V), sexual situations (S), coarse or crude indecent language (L), suggestive dialogue (D), and fantasy violence (FV). Based on the attributes, an administrator at the user end is facilitated to set up a viewing scheme via a parental rating function menu of the digital television.
FIG. 1 shows a setting table of an RRT. The RRT can be displayed as a menu using an on-screen display (OSD). An administrator, via a user interface, e.g., a remote control, sets up a viewing scheme. As shown in the diagram, the vertical items represent age groups including TV-V (all children) to TV-MA (17+ only), whereas the horizontal items represent the attributes including FV, V, S, L and D. An administrator sets programs or movies to be viewable or to be blocked based on specific ratings or content attributes through the menu. When receiving signals of programs or movies of the specific ratings or attributes, whether the programs or movies can be viewed or blocked is then determined by information in the data transport streams corresponding to ratings or attributes representing the contents. Further, a password is used in conjunction with the menu.
In other words, applications of current digital television programs are much more sophisticated rather than achieving simple settings such as blocking or permitting display of all programs of a specific channel. Preferably, a user freely configures settings to block or permit display of particular programs at different time slots, or programs or movies of specific ratings or attributes with respect to a same channel or different channels, giving a more personalized and flexible viewing scheme for digital television programs.
The above television rating system based on age groups and content attributes is defined by the ATSC. That is, associated conditions and contents, as well as the number of options on the menu are unchangeable, and definitions and categories of such menu not fully satisfy contents of certain programs so to be appropriately viewed by audiences. Therefore, precisely speaking, definitions and conditions provided by the aforesaid menu appear rather inadequate.
Take an entertainment program for example. An entertainment program is meant to entertain audiences of all age groups, and then have an attribute of general audience. However, contents of certain entertainment programs contain suggestive humor or coarse language, which evoke uneasiness when viewed by audiences of specific age groups such as elderly persons. Or, certain programs rated for general audiences contain excitement and thrills of various degrees, which are somewhat hard to be exactly classified using the foregoing content attributes defined by the ATSC. Further, certain programs involve melancholy implications that cause mental discomfort or negative influences when viewed by audiences other than mature audiences.
Therefore, in the United States, a mechanism for a downloadable rating region table (RRT) of digital televisions using RRT technology has been developed. Television channel providers are guided to classify and define programs to be broadcasted according to content attributes of the programs. With reference to a downloaded RRT contained in a data transport stream of corresponding digital televisions, a user at the user's end is facilitated to set whether the programs can be viewed or blocked as desired. RRTs of the digital television program are defined by channel service providers according to different channels or programs, and are transmitted to digital televisions in users' households using corresponding channels. Each RRT contains distinct definitions and dimensions, and is identified using various identification information. Note that channel service providers designate different or same identification information to RRTs of different programs of a same channel.
FIG. 2(a) shows a table of setting a first RRT 1 transmitted by a digital television program of a first channel. In the table, the vertical options represent the foregoing content attributes including entertaining, sexual and thrilling characteristics, and three attributes or dimensions from D1 to D3 are defined. The horizontal options represent degrees or ratings of corresponding attributes, such as mild, moderate and strong, and three degrees or ratings from R1 to R3 are shown in this diagram. Circles in the table indicate blocking is set against users.
FIG. 2(b) shows a table of setting a second RRT 2 transmitted by a digital television program of a second channel, and is similar to FIG. 2(a) showing the first RRT 1. Differences between the two tables are that, in the second RRT 2 in FIG. 2(b), vertical options define four attributes from D4 to D7, while horizontal options define four degrees or ratings from R4 to R7 corresponding to the attributes. Since users have various definitions for different channels or different programs, the attributes and ratings defined in the RRT 2 overlap with or are completely different from those defined in the RRT 1, so that blockage settings set by users in the two RTTs are unrelated.
In applications of the downloadable digital television RRT mechanism using current digital television technologies, a flash memory or an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) adopted in a digital television system is capable of storing only one set of program setting information. In other words, when the user switches channels such as switching from the aforesaid first channel to the second channel, settings made in the first RRT 1 of the first channel are deleted, and resetting is then necessary when switching back to the first channel.
In addition, when the user switches from the first channel to the second channel, the current digital television technologies directly apply settings in the first RRT 1 to the second RRT 2 without any adaptation. That is, a subsequent RRT inherits definitions of a previous RRT. However, as in the foregoing discussion, definitions for attributes and contents for two different RRTs are completely dissimilar, and blockage settings programmed by users are totally unrelated, on top of that direct applications of RTTs having different options or dimensions are not always suitable on one another. As a result, serious operating complications are incurred when the user views programs of certain channels and programs associated settings.